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Britain's 'Super Strength' Cannabis Could Be Causing Mental Health Problems

13 points by ytNumbers 9y ago

skate22 9y ago
"Latest figures shows there were 7,545 hospital admissions in 2016/2017 for drug-related mental health and behavioural disorders, 12 per cent higher than in 2006/2007." Why provide a stat that includes all drugs in an article about one specific drug
- pmden 9y ago
  It's a newspaper - not an academic journal. Interesting figures, even if not directly related (or just flat-out misleading), are commonplace.
  - lovemenot 9y ago
    It's not just any newspaper, it's The Telegraph. Where nothing is ever as good as it used to be. Apparently now dope too.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - sambe 9y ago
    Do you think newspapers should not be called out on misleading information? It seems to me that not highlighting the good vs bad articles/papers is a net loss for public discourse.
    - madaxe_again 9y ago
      The standard argument trotted out is that it's "up to the reader" to discern when they're being fed codswallop - because to tell them that they're reading nonsense would be an affront to their intelligence.
celticninja 9y ago
'Super Strength' is a relative description, it is comparing professionally bred and grown strains against bush weed from the 1970's. It is no more super strength that the strains available in the US right now. The telegraph is essentially a right wing tabloid these days, little better than the Daily Mail, im suprised to see such a poor article so high on HN.
- pennaMan 9y ago
  It also uses the telling tabloid scare-word "skunk" as if it's some kind of devilish genetic engineered superdrug when actually skunk cannabis is just a indica-sativa hybrid that has a strong smell, not necessarily a strong THC concentration. As a sad parallel, in Romania around 2008 when we had a massive influx of "legal high" synthetic THC analogs , the media scare-word for these highly dangerous synthetic research chemicals was literally "ethnobotanics".... Even now I can't contain my anger at this kind of willful ignorance spewed by what is supposed to be public information..
  - senorjazz 9y ago
    "skunk" used to a be a general catch-all term for buds with no seeds, regardless of strain. Higher quality, higher strength. Which is why the media use the word. Whether the term is still used by users, no idea.
    - pennaMan 9y ago
      Sensimillia, Spanish for "without seeds", was the term used before the 1930s craze when the US government rebranded it "marijuana". Buds with seeds were never in the history of human cannabis use considered for smoking, exactly because the THC content is extremely low when the plant produces seeds.
      - redblacktree 9y ago
        > Buds with seeds were never in the history of human cannabis use considered for smoking I can assure you that this is simply not true. It may be less potent, but beggars can't be choosers.
econ_th0 9y ago
14% is pretty weak marijuana. There are many other factors. I believe this piece is biased.
- wcchandler 9y ago
  I wouldn’t consider it weak but yeah, you can easily get that on the streets in the US. This piece is poorly informed and definitely trying to be overly sensational.
swarnie_ 9y ago
Completely anecdotal but i saw friends who moved on to long term use of "skunk" in the UK change a lot. They never kept up with the pack or reached close to their potential and ended up drifting away from the friendship group.
- lovemenot 9y ago
  another valid perspective: it was you and your retrospectively selected "friendship group", who drifted away from those people. Sounds like you have a one-dimensional view of change and potential.
  - swarnie_ 9y ago
    I have nothing against cannabis, i support its legalization. This stuff was marketed as particularly potent and really screwed with peoples minds after long term use.
- madaxe_again 9y ago
  When you say "potential" and "screwed with minds", what do you mean? They decided that career and kids and a two bed semi weren't the most important things in life?
  - swarnie_ 9y ago
    I fell there was a correlation between the use of this heavier strain of cannabis and still not having a job at 28 years old.
    - rainbowmverse 9y ago
      There's a reason "correlation does not equal causation" is such a popular heuristic.
      - swarnie_ 9y ago
        Maybe so, but i did prefaced my comment with "Completely anecdotal" I can only speak for a sample size of 3 people out of 40.
nukeop 9y ago
While marijuana is a dangerous drug that ought to be illegal, this has all signs of a moral panic.
- oldcynic 9y ago
  The Telegraph are barely better than the Mail on some topics. Since their relatively recent ownership change and rebrand they can't really be considered quality any more.
- redblacktree 9y ago
  I have two questions for you, and I ask them in earnest: 1) Why do you believe marijuana to be a dangerous drug? 2) Have you had any personal experience with marijuana?
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    There's this: https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/features/is-marijuana-safe-web#1 https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/features/is-marijuana-...
- hungerstrike 9y ago
  > While marijuana is a dangerous drug... Incorrect. This has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    No, it really hasn't. Cannabis almost certainly causes psychosis in some people.
    - hungerstrike 9y ago
      So does too much caffeine. Yawn. Dangerous is a very relative and subjective term but even so, Marijuana is largely not dangerous.
nailer 9y ago
Reading from https://hightimes.com/culture/how-much-thc-is-in-a-dab-a-bowl-and-a-joint/ https://hightimes.com/culture/how-much-thc-is-in-a-dab-a-bow... > A pinner with 0.4 grams of weed should deliver roughly 36 mg of THC, while a gram joint will dish out 90 mg of THC. How much THC would be in a skunk joint? Edit: 14 / 9 * 90 = 140mg for a gram joint. This is excellent reason for the government to sieze control of cannabis by regulating, taxing, and controlling it. In Nevada recently cannabis stores have the potency marked and clearly visible. if you want to ingest 20 grams, eat two gummis or two squares of chocolate.
- dorcus_maximus 9y ago
  It would be exactly the same if you just put less of it in the joint. Since you can't seem to do the math, the article you refer to would be using weed that is 9% THC. 14% (in that skunk joint) is hardly a quantum leap in strength. Take two puffs instead of three, was that so hard? Or would you advise people that inhaling more smoke from burnt plants is actually better?
  - nailer 9y ago
    No, I'd advise them to use edibles or vape. There's not much reason to ingest actual smoke anymore. 'Two puffs instead of three' doesn't really fix that joints aren't granular enough for most people: 10mg is fine for a casual cannabis user.
snarfy 9y ago
It's all purely anecdotal, but as a cannabis smoker of 30+ years that lived in an area with a large variety of cannabis types and strengths, there is definitely truth to 'skunk' causing problems. I don't believe there is anything special about the makeup of it, other than it's too strong for the way people smoke today. The tolerance range for cannabis is very large. A new smoker can take a single tiny puff and need to take the rest of the day off. A long term user can smoke 5 grams, probably 100x the quantity the new user did, and feel sober within an hour. It's too much build up over time that your brain is never really cleared out. And then you go crazy.
- madaxe_again 9y ago
  So.... it's OK for you, but not for the kids? I don't think anyone can smoke five grams in one sitting - and if they do, then that's their problem - not the strength of the stuff. I smoke the strong stuff, but I'll usually put 0.1g in a joint, not 5. I can't even envisage a 5g joint.
  - snarfy 9y ago
    That's about 5 large bowls in a pipe.
    - wavefunction 9y ago
      Very large bowls. In my heaviest usage periods of cannabis I smoke bowls by myself and I get a lot more than four bowls out of an eighth/3.8g.
      - snarfy 9y ago
        You are correct. My estimation is off quite a bit. More like 1.5-2g for 5 bowls.
  - redblacktree 9y ago
    I believe it would be called a blunt at that point.
madaxe_again 9y ago
"sinsemilla, also known as skunk" ... by Telegraph readers, and absolutely nobody else. In the UK press "skunk" is a term used to refer to, well, everything from hash to weed, to sometimes heroin - and they're all the same thing, don't you know. In Uruguay, 9% THC content is what the government sell. [1] Oh, and here's a crazy thing - if it's really strong - you smoke less, because it's not like you're not in control of what you roll into a joint - and in the UK, almost everyone rolls with tobacco or a rolling mix. “If the cannabis market is saturated with higher potency cannabis this increases the risk of younger and more naive users developing problems as they are less likely to adjust the amount of cannabis they ingest than more experienced users.” This is what we call "utter tripe". If that young and naive first-time-user decides to roll a fat joint, and then smokes the whole thing - well, they're going to first of all turn grey, then sweat, then lose control of their bowels, and feel pretty horrible for a few hours - and they won't make that mistake again. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/10/how-uruguay-made-legal-cannabis-work https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/10/how-uruguay-ma...
dekhn 9y ago
This article is a bit of joke and shows how far behind Britain is, in terms of cannabis use, compared to a place like the Bay Area. 10% THC cannabis was routine 10 years ago in the BA. Now, you can get 99.5% THC- a medicinal extract with extensive purification and attestable quality- although it is pricey (you pay for purification). It's consumed with a vaporizer, no combustion products if you set the heater low enough. Most of this product is purchased by well-heeled techies and other successful business and industry types; one of the nice things about mostly pure THC is that it's not completely debilitating (for experienced users). Whether there is an actual medical situation with high concentration THC would require much better studies.

13 points by ytNumbers 9y ago

"Latest figures shows there were 7,545 hospital admissions in 2016/2017 for drug-related mental health and behavioural disorders, 12 per cent higher than in 2006/2007." Why provide a stat that includes all drugs in an article about one specific drug

pmden 9y ago
It's a newspaper - not an academic journal. Interesting figures, even if not directly related (or just flat-out misleading), are commonplace.
- lovemenot 9y ago
  It's not just any newspaper, it's The Telegraph. Where nothing is ever as good as it used to be. Apparently now dope too.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- sambe 9y ago
  Do you think newspapers should not be called out on misleading information? It seems to me that not highlighting the good vs bad articles/papers is a net loss for public discourse.
  - madaxe_again 9y ago
    The standard argument trotted out is that it's "up to the reader" to discern when they're being fed codswallop - because to tell them that they're reading nonsense would be an affront to their intelligence.

celticninja 9y ago

'Super Strength' is a relative description, it is comparing professionally bred and grown strains against bush weed from the 1970's. It is no more super strength that the strains available in the US right now. The telegraph is essentially a right wing tabloid these days, little better than the Daily Mail, im suprised to see such a poor article so high on HN.

pennaMan 9y ago
It also uses the telling tabloid scare-word "skunk" as if it's some kind of devilish genetic engineered superdrug when actually skunk cannabis is just a indica-sativa hybrid that has a strong smell, not necessarily a strong THC concentration. As a sad parallel, in Romania around 2008 when we had a massive influx of "legal high" synthetic THC analogs , the media scare-word for these highly dangerous synthetic research chemicals was literally "ethnobotanics".... Even now I can't contain my anger at this kind of willful ignorance spewed by what is supposed to be public information..
- senorjazz 9y ago
  "skunk" used to a be a general catch-all term for buds with no seeds, regardless of strain. Higher quality, higher strength. Which is why the media use the word. Whether the term is still used by users, no idea.
  - pennaMan 9y ago
    Sensimillia, Spanish for "without seeds", was the term used before the 1930s craze when the US government rebranded it "marijuana". Buds with seeds were never in the history of human cannabis use considered for smoking, exactly because the THC content is extremely low when the plant produces seeds.
    - redblacktree 9y ago
      > Buds with seeds were never in the history of human cannabis use considered for smoking I can assure you that this is simply not true. It may be less potent, but beggars can't be choosers.

econ_th0 9y ago

14% is pretty weak marijuana. There are many other factors. I believe this piece is biased.

wcchandler 9y ago
I wouldn’t consider it weak but yeah, you can easily get that on the streets in the US. This piece is poorly informed and definitely trying to be overly sensational.

swarnie_ 9y ago

Completely anecdotal but i saw friends who moved on to long term use of "skunk" in the UK change a lot. They never kept up with the pack or reached close to their potential and ended up drifting away from the friendship group.

lovemenot 9y ago
another valid perspective: it was you and your retrospectively selected "friendship group", who drifted away from those people. Sounds like you have a one-dimensional view of change and potential.
- swarnie_ 9y ago
  I have nothing against cannabis, i support its legalization. This stuff was marketed as particularly potent and really screwed with peoples minds after long term use.
madaxe_again 9y ago
When you say "potential" and "screwed with minds", what do you mean? They decided that career and kids and a two bed semi weren't the most important things in life?
- swarnie_ 9y ago
  I fell there was a correlation between the use of this heavier strain of cannabis and still not having a job at 28 years old.
  - rainbowmverse 9y ago
    There's a reason "correlation does not equal causation" is such a popular heuristic.
    - swarnie_ 9y ago
      Maybe so, but i did prefaced my comment with "Completely anecdotal" I can only speak for a sample size of 3 people out of 40.

nukeop 9y ago

While marijuana is a dangerous drug that ought to be illegal, this has all signs of a moral panic.

oldcynic 9y ago
The Telegraph are barely better than the Mail on some topics. Since their relatively recent ownership change and rebrand they can't really be considered quality any more.
redblacktree 9y ago
I have two questions for you, and I ask them in earnest: 1) Why do you believe marijuana to be a dangerous drug? 2) Have you had any personal experience with marijuana?
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  There's this: https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/features/is-marijuana-safe-web#1 https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/features/is-marijuana-...
hungerstrike 9y ago
> While marijuana is a dangerous drug... Incorrect. This has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
- DanBC 9y ago
  No, it really hasn't. Cannabis almost certainly causes psychosis in some people.
  - hungerstrike 9y ago
    So does too much caffeine. Yawn. Dangerous is a very relative and subjective term but even so, Marijuana is largely not dangerous.

nailer 9y ago

Reading from https://hightimes.com/culture/how-much-thc-is-in-a-dab-a-bowl-and-a-joint/ https://hightimes.com/culture/how-much-thc-is-in-a-dab-a-bow... > A pinner with 0.4 grams of weed should deliver roughly 36 mg of THC, while a gram joint will dish out 90 mg of THC. How much THC would be in a skunk joint? Edit: 14 / 9 * 90 = 140mg for a gram joint. This is excellent reason for the government to sieze control of cannabis by regulating, taxing, and controlling it. In Nevada recently cannabis stores have the potency marked and clearly visible. if you want to ingest 20 grams, eat two gummis or two squares of chocolate.

dorcus_maximus 9y ago
It would be exactly the same if you just put less of it in the joint. Since you can't seem to do the math, the article you refer to would be using weed that is 9% THC. 14% (in that skunk joint) is hardly a quantum leap in strength. Take two puffs instead of three, was that so hard? Or would you advise people that inhaling more smoke from burnt plants is actually better?
- nailer 9y ago
  No, I'd advise them to use edibles or vape. There's not much reason to ingest actual smoke anymore. 'Two puffs instead of three' doesn't really fix that joints aren't granular enough for most people: 10mg is fine for a casual cannabis user.

snarfy 9y ago

It's all purely anecdotal, but as a cannabis smoker of 30+ years that lived in an area with a large variety of cannabis types and strengths, there is definitely truth to 'skunk' causing problems. I don't believe there is anything special about the makeup of it, other than it's too strong for the way people smoke today. The tolerance range for cannabis is very large. A new smoker can take a single tiny puff and need to take the rest of the day off. A long term user can smoke 5 grams, probably 100x the quantity the new user did, and feel sober within an hour. It's too much build up over time that your brain is never really cleared out. And then you go crazy.

madaxe_again 9y ago
So.... it's OK for you, but not for the kids? I don't think anyone can smoke five grams in one sitting - and if they do, then that's their problem - not the strength of the stuff. I smoke the strong stuff, but I'll usually put 0.1g in a joint, not 5. I can't even envisage a 5g joint.
- snarfy 9y ago
  That's about 5 large bowls in a pipe.
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    Very large bowls. In my heaviest usage periods of cannabis I smoke bowls by myself and I get a lot more than four bowls out of an eighth/3.8g.
    - snarfy 9y ago
      You are correct. My estimation is off quite a bit. More like 1.5-2g for 5 bowls.
- redblacktree 9y ago
  I believe it would be called a blunt at that point.

madaxe_again 9y ago

"sinsemilla, also known as skunk" ... by Telegraph readers, and absolutely nobody else. In the UK press "skunk" is a term used to refer to, well, everything from hash to weed, to sometimes heroin - and they're all the same thing, don't you know. In Uruguay, 9% THC content is what the government sell. [1] Oh, and here's a crazy thing - if it's really strong - you smoke less, because it's not like you're not in control of what you roll into a joint - and in the UK, almost everyone rolls with tobacco or a rolling mix. “If the cannabis market is saturated with higher potency cannabis this increases the risk of younger and more naive users developing problems as they are less likely to adjust the amount of cannabis they ingest than more experienced users.” This is what we call "utter tripe". If that young and naive first-time-user decides to roll a fat joint, and then smokes the whole thing - well, they're going to first of all turn grey, then sweat, then lose control of their bowels, and feel pretty horrible for a few hours - and they won't make that mistake again. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/10/how-uruguay-made-legal-cannabis-work https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/10/how-uruguay-ma...

dekhn 9y ago

This article is a bit of joke and shows how far behind Britain is, in terms of cannabis use, compared to a place like the Bay Area. 10% THC cannabis was routine 10 years ago in the BA. Now, you can get 99.5% THC- a medicinal extract with extensive purification and attestable quality- although it is pricey (you pay for purification). It's consumed with a vaporizer, no combustion products if you set the heater low enough. Most of this product is purchased by well-heeled techies and other successful business and industry types; one of the nice things about mostly pure THC is that it's not completely debilitating (for experienced users). Whether there is an actual medical situation with high concentration THC would require much better studies.